


That's the Sound of Your Brain Cracking

by freckleon



Category: Knight & Rogue - Hilari Bell
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 11:09:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2649845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freckleon/pseuds/freckleon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fisk loses himself for a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's the Sound of Your Brain Cracking

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Aline, who has been doing a stand-up job of providing us all with wonderful AUs this past week. Also, this representation of amnesia is not based on fact at all.

The ground is terribly unforgiving beneath his back. The clanging of cutlery on plates and raucous laughter—or is it shouting?—pierce his ears. When he makes an attempt at sitting up, a ringing overtakes the din and the room pitches, putting him right back on the floor.

"Oi, lad, give yerself a moment," says someone above him, sounding very far away.

Taking ten deep, measured breaths, he tries again. The results are far more positive this time, though his head still feels like it may not be screwed on right. He can see now what his ears determined earlier: he's sitting on the ground in a crowded bar. Half the patrons seem amused by him, while the others have simply lost interest. A harried woman appears at his side.

"Up now, Master Fisk. I'm real sorry about your head, but seeing as I've kicked out the other rascals in the fight, it's only right I boot you as well." She gets him standing upright, patting him roughly and talking all the while. "Benny will get you your horse from the stables and I'm sure Master Sprick across the street will be happy for the extra business. Now off with you!"

The bar door slammed behind him as he stood blinking in the twilight, sun a squashed orange bulge on the horizon. He can feel panic bubbling up inside him.

"Fisk," he says quietly, trying out the sound of it. "Fisk. Master Fisk. A last name?"

He considers, for a moment, reentering the tavern and working a brief story out of the woman, but alert bells are ringing in his head. He doesn't know what kind of situation he was in before he woke up on that floor. Better to skip town and lay low until he remembers… something. All his instincts are screaming at him to get out, and get out now.

A quick pat down reveals that he's carrying a small knife and a meager pouch of coins. This doesn't bother him, considering he can feel a few areas in his pants and boots where he's sure more money is hiding.

"Master Fisk."

That name again. A boy is heading towards him from the right side of the building, leading a smallish, painted horse up to him.

"Thanks," says Fisk, dropping a copper in the kid's hand. "I suppose she has a name?"

The boy eyes him strangely and says, "You were calling her Tipple, sir."

Fisk nods and aims Tipple for the town border.

 

Between this town and the next, Fisk has elaborated a backstory for himself that hopefully won't tie him to whomever it was that laid him out flat on that bar floor. It hadn't seemed that serious a fight, considering the amused atmosphere surrounding him when he came to, but Fisk would rather not take any chances. Distance is his best bet.

He's "Allen" when he rents a room the next night, paying for it with a silver piece he just picked from the pocket of a woman busy scolding her child as they exited the inn. The next night he's Michael, then Tyson, and so on. After his first town, he decides to keep heading West, maybe aim for a busy port city and look for work there. So far all he knows about himself is that his name may or may not be Fisk, he has a predilection for getting his hands on money when he needs it, and he doesn't trust anyone.

Not long after his original departure, Fisk realizes he has a tail. He has dithered for a few nights in Cedar Bay because the city is big enough to feel safe in anonymity. Tipple proved a bit problematic in the morning, when she managed to get her snout in a barrel of ale meant for the inn, but Fisk has since forgiven her.

The stable lanterns are just being lit as the sun dips below the horizon. Fisk is about to stroll in, apple in hand, when he hears an unfamiliar voice say his name. The one he was labeled with when he woke up with no memory. Shit.

When he peers cautiously around the open mouth of the stable, he can see two people conversing at Tipple's stall near the back, the taller one stroking her eager nose soothingly. Wary, but curious, Fisk darts around to the rear of the building and peeks in through an open window. He only has a view of the stranger's back, but he is more confident in the young stable boy not noticing his presence.

"You say the horse has been here two nights? Did you see the man who brought her in?"

The boy thinks for a moment, nodding hesitantly.

"What did he look like?" presses the stranger, urgently. Fisk doesn't like the tone. Desperate men are dangerous. Especially those still donning long sleeves in the dead of summer. The man is tall and slim, though his shoulders and arms show considerable strength. The sword at his side gleams in the firelight.

The stable boy gives a shoddy description of him, though Fisk isn't too worried anyway. He has made efforts to adjust his appearance since day one, just in case. The man likely won't be able to identify him unless in close range. But if the man recognizes his horse… Damn. Fisk has suddenly found himself without a ride.

He follows the man from the stable to a couple nearby bars, where he asks the same questions. "Did you see a man come into town with a small, painted horse with a proclivity for alcohol? What did he look like? Where is he now?" Fisk has kept to himself mostly since he arrived, but he did try to con a few patrons at the second bar the man tries. Lucky for him, the men were too drunk then to notice anything useful and too drunk now to care about answering questions.

When the man enters the sheriff's office next, Fisk makes himself scarce. Since he's definitely not going back to the inn, Fisk heads to the outskirts of the city, near the low walls that surround it, and spends the balmy night curled up in someone's backyard. In the morning he makes small talk with the city guard posted at the West entrance before strolling out on the path to the next piece of civilization. He walks for maybe ten minutes, just enough to get out of sight, then doubles back and hides at the city limits, waiting for his tail to show.

The man takes the bait, just as Fisk expected he would, heading West after a few words with the guard. He has a big, beautiful horse with him that he mounts and urges into a trot immediately, so Fisk doesn't have much a chance to follow on foot. Good riddance, he thinks, relieved, and heads North.

 

For a few months, Fisk manages quite well. He cons his way into the party of a wealthy brat traveling quite a few leagues to attend a highly detested cousin's wedding. With a little confidence and not an inconsiderable amount of pandering, Fisk has free transportation and food for almost a week. Once at the wedding, he makes himself indispensable to one of the so-rich-I-shit-gold barons and gets paid a rather handsome sum for several more weeks, until the baron's wife decides to run him off in revenge for a slight her husband gave her.

Times are a little more lean following that, but Fisk is getting by just fine. Sometimes he wonders if there might be family out there, waiting for him—he even returned to the town he originally woke in, just to check that someone wasn't weeping at the loss of him. No one glanced his way with any recognition and when he questioned a few residents, none could think of any missing people from the area. Besides, moving around just comes so naturally to him. Setting up camp, he finds, is a task he could do in his sleep, and navigating new towns, even sprawling cities, is a breeze. No, he must have been a traveler.

It's rather lonely, but not unmanageable. He even purchases a new horse—Corky—who, three weeks into their relationship, has the indecency to pitch him ass first, with his head following shortly after.

When he wakes up next, with an apologetic horse nuzzling at his face, Fisk suddenly remembers everything.

 

It takes him almost a week to get to the University where Kathy is studying, stopping little and sleeping less. When he shows up on her doorstep, she opens the door, takes about five seconds to stare in wide-eyed shock at him, and then slaps him soundly across the face.

"Ow."

"How. Dare. You."

"Kathy, I didn't--"

"How dare you leave him like that? Again!"

"It isn't what you think--"

"We didn't even know if you were alive! Someone could have killed you, stolen Tipple..." She takes a deep breath, glaring at him when he tries to speak again, and adds shrilly, "Michael searched for months. He is still searching for you, you absolute ass!"

He raises his arms in defense when it looks like she might smack him again. "Don't! I've had quite enough head injuries lately."

This gives her pause, but when he finishes telling his tale, her expression is still dangerously close to violence. In the end, she just hugs him fiercely before shouting at him a bit more and then forcing him to scrawl a hasty note to his family, confirming he is, indeed, still among the living. Kathy promises to fill in her own confirmation and send it off. Only once he has put the words to paper will she tell him where to find Michael.

"He said the trail went cold in a city named Cell Bay or something."

"Cedar Bay," corrects Fisk, with a wince. "That's where I left Tipple. Did he get her back?"

"Yes, eventually," says Kathy a bit stiffly. "She's stabled here. Anyway, he had this crazy idea that you may have been cudgel-crewed again, since it was a rather busy port. The Port Master told him the ship that last left would be hitting Milton in the fall. Last I heard he was waiting to see if you showed up there."

Fisk has one foot out the door when she calls to him, voice gone gentle.

"I'm sorry for the less-than-warm welcome. Michael—he had a bit of a rough go of it while you were gone, Fisk. Find him quick."

Fisk doesn't have to be told twice.

 

Milton stinks of horse shit and the air is thick with salt, but Fisk searches doggedly, manages to figure out all too easily where the tall, blonde, unredeemed man is staying. The owner of the flea infested shithole Michael is staying in directs him to the docks, where Michael has apparently taken work. Likely for a percentage of what he should actually be paid, if his accommodations are anything to go by.

He's been so single-minded in his task of finding Michael as fast as possible, that when Fisk spots the familiar man, he stops short, mind blank.

It's enough of a pause that Michael ends up turning around. When he locks eyes with Fisk, it seems to take him a moment to register and then he sort of crumples, swaying sideways into a stack of crates.

Fisk rushes to him, saying his name and seeing Michael mouth his back. Michael is dangerously skinny with a shiny, new scar under his eye to match the one on his chin. When he gets close enough to touch, Fisk can see that Michael is closing up, watching Fisk carefully like he might disappear.

No, not disappear. Like he might run off again.

Michael trying to play it aloof is far more painful than any head wound Fisk has endured in the past couple months. The knight wears his emotions on his sleeve—seeing him clam up is awful. That's Fisk's move.

"I forgot," he blurts. Not his most stellar explanation, but Michael seems to react to the desperation in his voice. His knuckles go white where they clutch the crates.

"I hit my head. Or someone else hit my head, I can't remember. But I forgot, Michael. Everything. My name, my family, you—wiped clean. And I panicked, okay? I knew someone was following me, and I just kept thinking, 'If I can only get somewhere quiet, somewhere safe, then I'll be able to figure this out,' so I sent you in the wrong direction." He looks at Michael desperately. "Gods, Michael. I'm so sorry."

And then he can't help himself any longer and launches at Michael, hugging him like it will repair all the days Michael has spent wondering if he was dead or had simply abandoned the knight. They don't really do hugs, but it might be time for that to change considering how fan-fucking-tastic if feels when Michael grips him back, almost lifting Fisk off his feet.

Michael croaks, "I thought you might be—"

"I know." Fisk cups the back of his head, sinking fingers into tangled locks of hair. "I'm sorry."

He gets hugged harder in return.


End file.
